The Sunday Salon: Clearing the Decks for RIP IV

Well, its the second to last day in August, and September means the start of the R.I.P reading challenge!

I’m currently reading two books which I’d like to try and get finished by tomorrow evening. The New Policeman by Kate Thornton, a YA read, which I’m really enjoying.

Everyone in Kinvara is conscious that time is flying past, faster and faster – to such an extent that when JJ asks his mother what she would like as a birthday present she ask for more time. JJ dismisses this as mere wishful thinking, an impossibility, for who know where the time goes?

The Liddys have been musicians for generations and JJ is no exception but what he discovers is that a shadow from the past hangs over their family – did his great-grandfather murder the village priest? When he sets out to buy his mother time, he discovers the fate of a flute, which will provide the key to both problems – it is the vital clue.

He makes the transition to Tir na n’Og, the land of eternal youth, where the fairy people are also having a problem with time and it falls to his lot to locate the leak between the two parallel worlds. JJ finds where time goes! Music proves to be the touchstone for communication between the fairy and the human domains and the book is saturated with the lure of Irish music for JJ’s whole existence is built round the ceili and each chapter relates to a tune, printed out as a heading so that the reader can also become a performer.

As for the “New Policeman”, Larry O’Dwyer, he is an enigmatic figure who has a significant bearing on the plot but whose identity is kept a superbly guarded secret to the very last surprising moment.

And the second read is a slightly odd read, Dead to Me by Anton Strout, which as I’ve just been chatting to Eva on twitter about, isn’t quite working for me, but every time I go to put it down, there’s a passage that makes me decide to give it another go! I’ve not had a book in ages that has trod the line between like/dislike so closely, so if nothing else, it’s an interesting experience reading it!

“Simon Canderous is a reformed thief and a psychometrist. By turns despondent over his luck with the ladies (not always living) and his struggle with the hierarchy of his mysterious department (not always truthful), Simon’s life veers from crisis to crisis. Following Simon’s adventures is like being the pinball in an especially antic game, but it’s well worth the wear and tear.”

So that’s what my Sunday reading consists of, what about yours?